The Pirate City by Robert Michael Ballantyne (suggested reading TXT) 📕

and sad fate of the sisters when he first saw them on board the pirate-vessel. At this sight of the younger sister, prudence, which had retained but a slight hold of him during the day, lost command altogether. In a burst of uncontrollable indignation he sent one of his guards crashing through the open doorway of the mosque, drove the other against the corner of a neighbouring house, rushed towards Sidi Hassan, and delivered on the bridge of that hero's nose a blow that instantly laid him flat on the ground. At the same moment he was seized by a dozen guards, thrown down, bound, and carried off to the whipping-house, where he was bastinadoed until he felt as if bones and flesh, were one mass of tingling jelly. In this state, almost incapable of standing or walking, he was carried to the Bagnio, and thrown in among the other prisoners.

While Mariano was being conveyed away, Sidi Hassan arose in a half-stupefied condition from the ground. Fortunately he was ignorant of who had knocked him down, and why he had been so treated, or he might have vented his wrath on poor Angela.

Just at that moment he was accosted by Bacri the Jew--a convenient butt on whom to relieve himself; for the despised Israelites were treated with greater indignity in Algiers at that time than perhaps in any other part of the earth.

"Dog," said he fiercely, "hast thou not business enough of thine own in fleecing men, that thou shouldst interfere with me?"

"Dog though I may be," returned Bacri, with gravity, but without a touch of injured feeling, "I do not forget that I promised you four thousand dollars to spare the Christians, and it is that which induces me to intrude on you now."

"Humph!" ejaculated Hassan, somewhat mollified; "I verily believe that thou hast some interested and selfish motive at the bottom. However, that business is thine, not mine."

"Whether my motive be interested or not you are well able to judge," returned Bacri gently, "for the slaves are poor and helpless; they are also Christians, and you know well that the Jews have no love for the Christians; in which respect it seems to me that they bear some resemblance to the men of other creeds."

Sidi Hassan felt that there was an intended sarcasm in the last remark, but the thought of the dollars induced him to waive further discussion.

"Do you wish to sell the girl?" said Bacri in a casual way, as though it had just occurred to him.

"Ay, but I must have a good price for her," replied the Turk.

"Name it," said the Jew; "my wife has need of a handmaiden just now."

Hassan named a sum much larger than he had any expectation the Jew would give. To his surprise, the other at once agreed to it.

"Why, Bacri," he said, with a smile, as with his right hand he tenderly caressed his injured nose, "you must have been more than usually successful in swindling of late."

"God has recently granted me more than deserved prosperity," returned the other.

Without further palaver the bargain was struck. Hassan accompanied the Jew to his residence in one of the quaint Moorish houses of the old town. Angela was handed over to Bacri's wife, a pleasant-visaged woman of forty, and Hassan returned home with his pockets well lined, his nose much swelled, and his temper greatly improved.

Bethinking him of the Dey's commands, he set out with Paulina and her infant for the residence of the British consul, which lay a short distance outside the northern wall of the town, not far from the bluff height on which, at the present day, towers the picturesque pile of Notre-Dame d'Afrique.


CHAPTER SIX.


SENDS A GLEAM OF HOPE INTO A GLOOMY REGION.

The short twilight of southern latitudes was giving place to the shades of night, when Bacri the Jew issued from the low door of his house, and threaded the narrow labyrinth of streets which compose the old town of Algiers.

The greater part of the old, or, as it is styled, the Moorish town, remains almost exactly the same at the present time that it was at the time of which our tale treats. It occupied the face of a steep hill, and was built in the form of a triangle, the apex being a fort, or "casba," near the summit of the hill. The base was a street of oriental houses upwards of half a mile in extent, beyond which the sea-wall, well lined with batteries, rose directly from the beach, and was washed by the spray in every breeze. All the houses facing the sea have now been taken down, and their places are occupied by wide handsome streets of French buildings; the beach and the site of the old wall being occupied by splendid quays, wharves, and terraces.

The houses of the Moorish town were square white-washed blocks, built so close to each other that most of the streets were mere lanes, not more than from six to ten feet wide. No windows worthy of the name garnished the dead white walls of these houses, whose light sprang in reality from within, each house being in the form of a square of building surrounding a central court, which at the top was open to the weather. The real windows of the houses looked into the courts, which, however, were by no means dismal. They had fountains in the midst of them, which sent up a perpetual--and, in such a climate, grateful--sound of trickling water; while in their corners and elsewhere boxes of earth enabled banana-trees, and palms, and various creepers, to convert the little spots into delightful, though miniature, gardens. Such windows as opened outwards were mere loop-holes, not much more than a foot square-- many of them less,--the larger of them being always strongly grated. Most of these houses projected beyond their basement storeys, thus rendering the open space above narrower than the streets below, and in many cases the walls absolutely met, and converted the streets into tunnels. Strange wooden props, seemingly insufficient for their duty, upheld these projecting upper storeys, and gave a peculiarly un-European character to the streets,--a character which became still more perplexing to the stranger when he observed here and there, in places where architecture had scarcely space or light to be seen, fountains of the most elegant design and workmanship; doorways of white marble, most elaborately and beautifully carved; and entrance-halls that resembled courts of the Alhambra in miniature.

When one first sees such things they induce surprise, but the surprise evaporates when we reflect that these pirates had at their command the services of thousands of slaves, many of whom represented the artistic talent of the civilised world.

Passing rapidly along these narrow streets, and bending his tall form when he came to low archways, Bacri at length emerged on the chief "high street" of the town, which, entering at the north, or Bab-el-Oued gate, completely traversed the city under that name as far as the Dey's palace, where it changed its name to Bab-Azoun, and terminated at the south gate of the same name.

In this street was the Bagnio, already mentioned as being the prison of the government slaves.

Here Bacri paused, drew a glittering coin from his pocket, and knocked at a strong oaken door. A janissary opened, and roughly demanded his business, but changed his tone at once and gave the Jew admission, on receiving the coin.

Passing though a lobby, whose marble pillars were sadly broken and disfigured, the Jew entered a courtyard, open to the sky, around which were a number of recesses or cells. In these the unhappy slaves sat huddled together. They were not cold, for it was summer; but their misery and want of space probably induced them to cling closely to each other.

The place had once been a bathing establishment, and an old fountain still gurgled in the centre of the court; but its drains had been choked long ago, and the waters had overflowed, to find exit as they best might, rendering the floor a damp and uncomfortable residence for scorpions, centipedes, and other repulsive insects.

The slaves received only two small rolls of black bread as their rations at the close of each day, and they were too eagerly engaged in devouring these to pay much regard to their visitor.

Looking carefully round, the Jew at length discovered the objects of his search,--Francisco, Lucien, and Mariano Rimini. The two first were seated side by side, eating their meagre meal. Mariano lay near them, heavily laden with irons, and also endeavouring to eat.

"Friends," said Bacri, approaching them.

"Villain!" cried Mariano, starting up into a reclining attitude, despite the agony that the act occasioned, and fixing his eyes on the Jew.

"You do me injustice, young man," said Bacri, seating himself on the basement of a pillar.

"It may be that he does you injustice," said Lucien sternly, "nevertheless we have all of us good reason to believe that you are a friend of the pirate Hassan, and no friend of ours."

"Whether friend or foe, say thy say, man, and be gone," cried the bluff Francisco, whose spirit suffered even more than his body from the indignities to which he had been subjected that day.

"Listen, then," said Bacri impressively. "You know my name and nation, but you do not know that I am the chief of the Jews in this city of devils. I and my people are regarded by these followers of Mohammed as worse than the dogs in their streets, yet, while they treat us with the utmost indignity, they know that we are good traders, and as such bring riches within their walls. I have power--the power of wealth--to help you at a pinch; indeed I _have_ helped you, for it was only by means of a promise of gold that I induced Sidi Hassan to spare your lives when his men were bent on taking them. But that is not what I came to tell you to-night. I came to say that the poor captive girls with whom you voyaged to this place are for the present out of danger."

"Say you so?" exclaimed Mariano eagerly. "How can that be? Did I not see Angela led to the slave-market this very afternoon?"

"You did, and I purchased her for the purpose of protecting her. She is now in my house. Her sister and the infant have been sent as a temporary gift or loan to the British consul, under whose care she is safe _for the present_. But be not too sanguine," added Bacri, seeing that Mariano's countenance brightened; "the whim of the Dey, or a change of government, which latter is common enough here, may totally alter the state of affairs. If the Dey willed it, I could not hold anything that belongs to me for an hour. They call us dogs, and treat us as such."

"They are themselves dogs!" cried Mariano indignantly.

"Christians have called us by the same name," returned the Jew calmly, "thereby proving the falsity of their own faith."

"Say not so!" cried Lucien with animation. "Many, calling themselves Christians, have undoubtedly treated your race ill, but those who really love the Lord Jesus cannot help respecting the people from whom Himself sprang. I side not with those who disgrace themselves by vilifying the Jews."